Edith Dimock, the wife of urban realist painter William Glackens, was a talented painter and illustrator. Her vivid watercolors of women and children in their daily activities were praised for their “smashing color.”Read MoreRead Less

Women at the Armory Show
Though the Association of American Painters and Sculptors was an all male organization, of the roughly 304 artists who exhibited at the Armory Show, 50 were women. [1] Dimock lent a group of eight watercolors.

Her subjects and style
Dimock’s watercolors demonstrate an interest in working class life characteristic of the Ashcan school. However, unlike her male Ashcan colleagues, she focused primarily on the daily experience of women and children . Works like these allude to female relationships and concentrate on sites of female social interaction. Dimock’s illustrational aesthetic employs vibrant color and loose brushwork to lend a humorous and lighthearted quality to her images of rosy-cheeked women.

Sold!
All eight of Dimock’s watercolors were purchased from the Armory Show; nos. 116-121 were sold for $280 to George E. Marcus, and Sweatshop Girls in the Country and Mother and Daughter were sold to John Quinn for $35 each. [2]

The critics respond
Dimock’s work was also well reviewed by critics. Harriet Monroe of the Chicago Tribune praised Dimock’s “clever studies of sweatshop workers.” [3] The critic for the New York Times applauded their “smashing color.” [4]

A buyer, too
Dimock also purchased works from the Armory Show for the Glackens’ own collection, including a drawing by Walt Kuhn and another by Maurice Prendergast. [5]

[2] Milton Brown, The Story of the Armory Show, 2nd. ed. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), 262. Quinn apparently changed his mind about the watercolors after he agreed to purchase them stating that “I am not especially crazy about the two Dimock things, and I think I can get some more amusing ones of her’s [sic] at some other time.” Nevertheless, he agreed to go through with the sale. See John Quinn, New York, to Walt Kuhn, June 3, 1913. Elmer Livingston MacRae Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Treasurer’s Records C3, box 1, no.7, 22-24.